


Of prince Gojyo, who went out to beat a dragon and save a princess, but ended up doing something wholly different

by ginnyvos



Series: Fairy Tales on Crack [2]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyvos/pseuds/ginnyvos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Gojyo goes off to save the beautiful princess Kanan, who is in the claws of a fearsome and savage dragon. Whatever he finds, it definitely isn't a princess. There might also be footnotes involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of prince Gojyo, who went out to beat a dragon and save a princess, but ended up doing something wholly different

Once upon a time in a place far, far from here, there lived a prince named Gojyo. He was a beautiful prince, charming and sought after by many a maiden. This prince however, like every prince in every fairy tale told in the history of man, needed to seek out a special maiden for him to be able to marry her. So he travelled far and wide, looked here and there and behind the magical forest in the castle gardens, and asked whoever crossed his path whether they had heard of any princesses in need of rescuing.

He heard many a story, and pursued a few, rescued a princess or five but never did any quite catch his eye for long enough that they had time to get married.

Some were too old, some too young, some not beautiful enough, and some he simply did not like, for reasons not further specified. But those are stories for another time, as this tale pursues the story of the beautiful princess Kanan, a lovely and sophisticated maiden, - or so the man in the local pub told our prince when he was investigating there late one night - well studied and an absolute delight to be around.

This, to our prince, sounded very interesting, though he had to admit to being a little leery, because the same description had been given to him before, and that time, the princess turned out to be only 5 years old and more interested in playing tag than marriage for some years to come. It’s tricky business, this princess-saving-business, you see. Timing is everything. (1)

Anyway, our prince saddled his horse (or had his stable-boy do it anyway) and put on his armour and rode off, red hair flaming in the wind as he did so.

The beautiful princess Kanan, or so the story went, was locked up in a tower, protected by a fierce fire breathing dragon, and her hand in marriage would be given to any prince brave enough to save her.

It took him two months to find the tower in question,(2) but his adventures on the way are told elsewhere so we shall procede at the time he finally, tired, and weary of his travels, wearing the grime of a thousand miles, found the right tower.

It was at a dark night, and lighting flashed through the sky as thunder rolled over the land. Prince Gojyo carefully surveyed the castle. It was old, he could see, and run-down, but not as ruined as some of the places he’d seen after a dragon came to inhabit them.

Quietly, our prince stepped off his noble steed and tied it to a tree. On silent feet, he crept into the castle, miraculously making not a sound, even with an steel armour that should be making enough of a ruckes to wake all of the castle no less the town a few miles down the road.

Either way, the prince silently crept into the castle, and pulled his sword in preparation for the violent, savage beast that inhabited the place. It was dark in the castle, but surprisingly well taken care off. This, prince Gojyo figured, must’ve been the noble princess’ doing. Poor thing, being forced by such a brute and fearsome creature to do the work of a maid and keep the beast’s lair clean.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a flash of lighting lit the room and a huge shadow adorned the opposite wall. ‘The dragon!’ shot through the prince’s head. It was huge, its wings so big that they surpassed the space on the wall, its body long and stance menacing. And its beak… Oh its beak, spread open and full of long, sharp teeth. Poisoned, undoubtly(3).

It was only in a flash that the prince had time to take this in, before he turned around in a mad circle, trying to discern where the hideous creature could be.

The room, however, was empty.

Suddenly, a voice sounded through the room, so cold and threatening that it could be no other than the dragon’s. “What are you doing in my castle?” asked the voice, further confirming the prince’s suspicion that it had to be the dragon, “I would kindly request of you to turn around and leave. There is nothing here for you except for some rather unpleasant experiences and revelations!”

He had to admit the last bit rather surprised him. He hadn’t really expected the dragon to… Well… Know more big words than he did. No matter. He was determined to free the poor princess from the dragon’s grasp, a well-spoken dragon was not going to deter him from his quest!

“Hand her over!” prince Gojyo yelled out boldly, swinging his sword around quite fiercely indeed(4).

The dragon chuckled before going silent for a moment, than asked, in a contemplative voice; “Hand what over, exactly? I am afraid there is nothing I can do for you, sir, without knowing what, exactly, you are looking for…”

Suddenly, it came to Gojyo. The dragon must be trying to trick him with his polite speech, trying to overcome him with words to avoid getting blood on its savage claws. That must be it. Well, two could play that game! “Hand over that what you protect, you savage beast, and I will not slash and slam and stab my sword, and you will walk out of this alive!” That was a lie, really, he had no intentions to let the creature live, but it was a good lie, prince Gojyo felt, for a good cause.

“Now, now, no need to go around insulting people,” the dragon said, sounding quite offended indeed, but apparently not letting it deter him from his evil plans, “And I’m afraid that I can’t give you what I protect… It’s way too precious to me! My sincerest apologies, sir knight, but it seems you will have to leave…”

“No way!” prince Gojyo called out, forgetting himself and the carefully overthought plan he’d just made up, “Come out in the open, you cowardly scum, and fight like the monster you are! I am ready!”

He wasn’t. Quite the opposite actually, when a ball of bright green… Something, hit him right in the chest. It neatly bounced off on his shiny armour, crashing into the wall and leaving a man-sized hole in it while shoving the prince onto his backside unceremoniously.  
“Well… That didn’t quite go as expected,” the dragon said, contemplatively, and than, “And you made a hole in my wall! What shamelessness! Don’t you knights not know anything about manners these days? It will take ages to fix that up! And I am willing to bet that it will never be as good as it was!”

The prince didn’t really hear this though, because he was trying very hard to get up… And failing quite spectacularly. His armour suddenly felt rather heavy.

“I’ll have to rebuild it from scratch, and than put up new wallpaper…. In the whole room, probably, because the old one went out of the collection years ago! And oh, when it will rain, and it surely will, the rug will be ruined as well! And will he pay for it? Of course not, they never do!”

It was at that moment, the exact moment that Gojyo looked up to survey the room and the ‘dragon’ walked over to the hole to survey the damage, as this happens in fairytales, that a convenient bolt of lightning flashed by and the room was lit once more.

In the sudden light there was not a dragon – well there was a dragon-shaped shadow as well, but that wasn’t what caught the prince’s attention this time – but a man. He was tall and his hair dark, a pair of prim glasses covered his face but, for some reason prince Gojyo couldn’t quite phantom, this only seemed to enhance his beauty. Because the man was, in one word, beautiful. He was also muttering about rude, unmannered knights and their tendency to destroy his property, and how this was going to cost him a fortune, and what kind of colour would suit the room best, because if he was going to have to redecorate the room anyway, he might as well do it properly.

Prince Gojyo simply stared(5).

As he sat there and looked at the man, he felt something, somewhere inside him, click into place, and a strange warmth spread through him as these things tend to happen in this kind of tales when the prince finds his one true beloved. Being a man though, as well as a prince, Gojyo habitually didn’t pay much attention to what he felt, and was in that moment more interested in why there was a man instead of a horrible dragon, and where the dragon had gone.

So he asked.

Surprised, the man looked up from his musings over the hole in his wall, and to the prince. “A dragon? You mean Hakuryuu? What would you want with him? And are you planning to pay me back for the damage you have done? You  _do_ have money, don’t you? Because if you don’t, I will feel obligated to force you to stay and help me fix it. It will be a  _lot_  of work, you see?”

Gojyo blinked. “Hakuryuu?” The horribly, savage beast had a  _name_? And wasn’t it obvious he wanted to beat it so he could save the beautiful princess? As for the money, he wisely stayed silent on the issue, as the issue wouldn’t matter once he’d beaten the dragon(6).

“Hakuryuu. He’s not quite fond of any other company except for mine you see, he tends to be rather shy around others… What in the name of the Merciful Goddess would you want with him?”

The dragon was ‘not fond of company’? Yeah right. He’d just bet he wasn’t… “I’ll beat him!” Gojyo stated, with the surety that really didn’t suit a man that still couldn’t get up from the ground. “I’ll beat him and free the beautiful princess Kanan, and than I’ll marry her and we’ll live happily ever after, that’s what I’ll do!”

The man looked at him sceptically and than chuckled. “I’m sure you would… But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. See, my sister, princess Kanan, got sick of waiting for a decent suitor to show up quite some time ago. She went out into the world to find her own princess to save, and last I heard, she and lady Yaone have been living quite happily ever after. It’s just Hakuryuu and me in here now and honestly, I think that, if you’re so keen on defeating dragons, you should find yourself one a little more your size…”

“I don’t care how big he is, I’ll take him on! I’ll slice the whole savage thing into bite-sized pieces and than serve them to the dogs damn it! Tell me were he is!” Gojyo barked, ignoring the part about the princess going off and such. This completely defied the logic of fairytales and Gojyo’s poor fairytale-minded mind couldn’t really grasp the concept.

“You will do no such thing!” The smile on the other man’s face lost all of its warmth in seconds, turning to a frightening mask which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the face of the savage beast itself, but did look out of place on the beautiful one in front of him, in Gojyo’s humble opinion.

“Will too!” our prince retorted – noone ever said his sharp and witty comebacks where Gojyo’s strongest point, now did they? – “Show me!”

In the man’s hands, a new ball of green light was forming. His eyes glinted as he stared down at the figure of prince Gojyo, still the floor and quite harmless as his sword was several meters away.

Within moments, everything went green, and than black.  


~*~   


When Gojyo came to, he was in a richly decorated but rather girly looking room, lit by many a candle and looking fit for a princess. In a chair next to his bed sat a young man he vaguely recognized as the man he’d met earlier. He had been right in one thing at least, the man was indeed beautiful (7). He was also sound asleep.

When Gojyo sat up a little – his head hurt like a bitch, but he couldn’t let this deter him in order to assess his surroundings and, indeed, the man in front of him – he noticed something white in the mans lap. At further inspection, the white… thing, turned out to be alive. Gojyo found this out quite rudely, as he tried to poke it, and the thing poked back… Using sharp little teeth.

It was a dragon, well and truly. It was also no bigger than a well-sized cat and currently biting the prince’s finger and glaring at him angrily. It flapped his little wings and glared some more, when suddenly, a soothing hand descended on its head and pried open its beak.

“Now, now, Hakuryuu, I hardly think that that is necessary, do you? Please let our noble knight go? I’m sure he didn’t mean all those names he called you earlier! It is probably all one big misunderstanding…” The ‘or it better be’, went unsaid, but was heard by prince Gojyo anyway.

The prince quickly snatched away his finger the moment the dragon loosened its bite on it. Angry little teeth-marks adorned the skin but otherwise, it seemed to be fine. “I- I guess you are right,” he said shakily, once more growing warm on the inside at the sight and sound of this strange man and not really wanting to find out what would happen if it hadn’t been some misunderstanding.

The man smiled pleasantly at him, still petting the dragon in his lap. “See, Hakuryuu? I don’t like saying it, but I told you so! Sir…?”

“Prince-Gojyo,-nice-to-meet-you,” Gojyo mumbled, still kind of confused and wondering why he suddenly felt like a blushing girl.

“Sir Gojyo definitely didn’t mean these things the way they sounded. He will surely also help me fix the wall he broke… I’m sure he’s really a decent guy… And a prince to booth! Such a shame that Kanan has already gone…”

Gojyo wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, either, but he was suddenly, and with a frightening intensity, sure that he was, in fact, staying to help this man fix the wall.  
   
~*~  
   
Our prince did stay to fix the wall, although he had little in terms of money to compensate for the man’s expenses. The man was named Hakkai, he found out later, and when his older sister went off to find her princess, he was left in charge of looking after the dragon. They weren’t from a very rich family and thus hadn’t been able to afford an big one, but, as Hakkai said, Hakuryuu was a good friend and a loyal protector, and he wouldn’t trade him for a big dragon if he was offered all the money in the world. 

Hakuryuu wasn’t very fond of Gojyo, and the feeling was mutual, but they tolerated each other because Hakkai told them too.

As prince Gojyo got to know prince Hakkai, he slowly came to realise that the prince was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. He was sophisticated, clean, friendly, smart and devastatingly beautiful. He was also quite male, but for some reason, this couldn’t quite bother Gojyo as much as it should’ve. Every time he saw Hakkai, a warm feeling spread through his chest, and his head got slightly turned around and confused(8) so he never really did figure out why that was.

What he did figure out, however, was how to pay Hakkai back for his expenses. One day, when Hakkai was once again going on about how expensive the repairs were, and how they far exceeded his budget, the answer came to Gojyo in a flash.

“You know, I could pay you back after all,” he said at once, not really thinking it through because really, thinking things through wasn’t his strong side and blurting things out had gone quite well for him all his life.

“Oh?” Hakkai suddenly seems interested.

“Yeah… But you’d have to marry me. See, I have a kingdom at home. Well not yet, dad won’t hand it over before I get myself a proper wife… Or maiden… Or whatever. Before I get married anyway. A kingdom would be enough to cover your stupid expenses, right?”

Hakkai stared at him long and hard. Long enough, in fact, for the significance of what he’d just said to sink fully into prince Gojyo’s mind. For some odd reason, he didn’t mind half as much as he should.

When Hakkai finally answered, it wasn’t by falling into Gojyo’s arms and kissing him romantically, as one would expect at the end of a proper fairytale, but with a small and thoughtful nod. “Well, I guess that  _would_  solve a lot of problems… I hadn’t really planned on marrying anyone any time soon, but I guess… I guess we could try. You’d have to start by properly courting me though! I won’t marry some random guy who comes barging into my castle and than keeps hanging around after that. And we’ll have to ask permission from my father of course… You asking for my hand and all… And I want to lay down a few ground rules! And-“   


~*~   


Gojyo messed up the bit about courting – he just hadn’t had much practice at that, girls had usually simply fallen for him – but Hakkai didn’t seem to mind that much. After a month, when the wall was completely fixed, they went to Hakkai’s father. The man gave his blessing, all the while grumbling at the lack of sense and grandchildren his children were displaying, but smiling nonetheless.

They never did get around to returning to Gojyo’s kingdom. Later on, they heard from a travelling musician, that a young prince and his fair and purple-eyed but rather bitchy fiancée had taken over the throne, but they didn’t really mind. They stayed in Hakkai’s castle, took care of the little dragon (in Hakkai’s case) and had enough to keep them busy without a land to govern. Together, they lived happily ever after(9).   


~*~   


(1) This had been made painfully clear by the one time Gojyo found a maiden who’d slept for a hundred years, waiting for a proper prince to come and kiss her awake. She was all wrinkly and icky and the prince had promptly turned around and left the castle the same way he came.

(2) He made a detour to taste what was claimed to be the best mead in the country – it was quite disappointing, but a fun night nonetheless, good company can help a lot – and another one to check out a fair-haired maiden with purple eyes, locked up by her evil uncle, but another prince was there before him and the maiden was way too bitchy for his tastes anyway.

(3) Now if our prince had known more about dragons – if he’d paid more attention to his royal prince-lessons instead of the pretty teachers-aid, for instance – he would’ve known that the teeth of the big dragon species are rarely poisonous if at all. They don’t need poisonous teeth, because one bite by those teeth will kill you anyway, poison or not. According to the ‘survival of the one that reproduces most’ theory, poisonous teeth would actually have been a disadvantage for the chance of killing your mating-partner with an accidental love-bite.

He would also have known that dragons, generally, aren’t very talkative.

(4) Though he didn’t quite know what he was swinging at, exactly, but no matter.

(5) Not that he could do anything else in any case, as his armour was still way heavier than he remembered it to be, and he could still not get up.

(6) Incidentally, prince Gojyo had no money on him at present time, most of his money having vanished in that one really great pub he’d found along the way. My, but their beer had been good!

(7) Prince Gojyo was usually right in these matters. He was quite skilled in the trade of assessing ones beauty in one glance, if he did say so himself.

(8)Whether this was due to the spell of love or the fact that Hakkai used a lot of complicated and long words remains to be seen.

(9) Or as happily as one can be when living in an old castle that was prone to breaking apart whenever they happened to disagree on something, or with a dragon who had decided long ago that Hakkai was  _his_ , and was really not inclined to share with Gojyo, no matter what Hakkai might have to say in the matter.


End file.
